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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (comic)
.]] The comic adaptation of ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' was written by John Jackson Miller and pencilled by Luke Ross. It was published by Dark Horse Comics on May 22, 2008. Publisher Spotlight released the two issues — two for each cover — as four individual 24 page hardcovers for libraries in August, 2009.http://www.perma-bound.com/Search/HgOPTawqIwbJLoqNCPDv4w/1#prod38790a Synopsis Differences from the film As with the novelization, the comic book differs from the movie in many ways: *There is no race between the disguised Soviet convoy and some American teenagers. *Dovchenko, oddly, never wears a hat, ever, in any of his scenes. *Instead of American Dodge M-57's, artists Luke Ross and Cliff Richards for some reason have drawn all of the "American" jeeps used in the Hangar 51 sequence as Soviet GAZ 69's (used later on in the comic as well as in the film in the jungle). *Indiana Jones has his jacket in Nevada. *Instead of Dovchenko chasing Indy and them falling through a skylight into the room with the rocket sled, Indy jumps into the back of the jeep Dovchenko is driving, and they drive down some stairs into the room. And instead of the sled being accidentally activated by Dovchenko bumping into a control panel, Indy deliberately activates it, somehow knowing what it will do. Also no inrushing Soviets are incinerated by the rockets' backwash. *Dovchenko is still conscious when the sled comes to a halt, and Indy knocks him out. *When being interrogated, Indy faces only Agent Smith. Agent Taylor never appears. Smith also questions General Ross' loyalty in addition to Indy's, and there is no indication he and Smith are on a first-name basis. *Indy learns he was fired from the university at home, rather than being told by Dean Stanforth after being pulled out his class. The scenes with Stanforth at Indy's house take place at night instead of daytime, and there is no reflection on the passing of Indy's father or Marcus Brody. *Indy is about to board the train in Bedford when Mutt arrives at the station, instead of already being aboard the train. *The chase around the college campus does not include the sequence where Jones is pulled into the Soviets car from Mutt's motorcycle, but it does include driving a football field during a game in progress. *When Indy and Mutt face the guards in Chauchilla Cemetery, instead of Indy killing one with his own poisoned dart and driving the other away, he knocks them both off a cliff with his whip and kills them. *The preserved Conquistador Indy uncovers does not deteriorate after being exposed to the fresh air. *Indy, Marion and Mutt's attempted escape from the Russian camp occurs the following morning rather than at night. *Before Indy and Marion have their discussion in the back of Dovchenko's truck, there is a scene in Spalko's jeep where Spalko gazes into the crystal skull, and then Mac tries to convince her that the skull's abilities are rubbish. Spalko disagrees, citing her knowledge of Soviet experiments in telepathy, and answering Mac's unspoken question. *During the jungle chase, Mac's revelation that he is a CIA agent is followed by him revealing that he was the reason that Bob Ross was in Nevada to bail Jones out. *The jungle chase does not include Mutt's monkey attack, nor the cliffside jockeying for position. *Following the jungle chase, Spalko's car does not follow Indy's duck into the giant anthill, and thus her driver is not eaten by the siafu. In fact no Russians arrive on the scene except for Dovchenko, who arrives on foot rather than in the truck. *Dovchenko is not dragged down the ant hill and does not fight Indy. Indy just elbows him, knocking Dovchenko into a swarm of ants. There, Dovchenko just yells "NYET!" and is shown with ants all over him. *There are only two waterfalls. The first drop is the cliff that the duck drives off of. The Duck is not destroyed by the trip over the falls. *Inside the ruins where Jones' group view the historical record of how the outsiders came to teach the Ugha, Jones also talks about the conquistadors, and Mutt finds a picture of one of the visitors, but missing his head. *During the Ugha attack, Mutt gets a bolo around his neck inside the passage, and Indy punches out an Ugha warrior before they run down the steps to the city of Akator. *Spalko and the remaining Soviets find the entrance to Akator not because of Mac's tracers (as in the film) or Spalko's psychic powers (as in the novel), but because they find the Duck parked in the water near the entrance. However, Mac has left behind homing beacons in the ruins leading to Akator. *Mac finds some gems after reaching the bottom of the retracting staircase inside the Temple of Akator, and entices Mutt to grab the treasure, before Indy points out the corpses of the former looters. *Inside the temple, Indy tells Spalko his reason for why the skull won't talk to her - it spoke to him and Oxley because the visitors were teachers. Spalko insists that the visitors were a hive mind. *Instead of being sucked into the vortex, the soldiers with Spalko are burned up by the piercing gaze of the crystal skeletons. The skeletons also never grow flesh and combine into one being, and simply surround Spalko as she dies. *Mac is pulled into the vortex when he is inside a room of staircases and falling water, and not in the historical vault room -- and Indy does not use his whip to try to save him. *The destruction of the temple area does not involve many large rock fragments circling above the site, merely a large mysterious orb. *Deirdre Stanforth is absent from the wedding scene. *Mutt doesn't briefly contemplate wearing Indy's fedora at the end. Appearances Characters *Marcus Brody *Francisco de Orellana *Antonin Dovchenko *Higgins *Henry Walton Jones, Sr. *Indiana Jones *George McHale *Mitchell *Harold Oxley *Marion Ravenwood *Bob Ross *Russian Soldier 1 *Paul Smith *Irina Spalko *Deirdre Stanforth *Charles Stanforth *Mutt Williams *Jimmy Wycroft Behind the scenes John Jackson Miller asked to be involved with a comic book adaptation of what ultimately became Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull back in 2005, long before the fourth Indiana Jones film entered into active development. While there was, at that time, no script for the film nor even a guarantee that Dark Horse Comics would adapt it, Miller made his Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic editor Jeremy Barlow that he definitely wanted to write it should the fourth film happen.[https://www.farawaypress.com/fiction/books/indianajones4.html Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull] at Faraway Press Around Star Wars Celebration IV in May 2007, when the fourth Indiana Jones picture was preparing to film, Miller was asked by Barlow to write its comic book adaptation. Going against his usual writing habits, Miller included the presence of an omniscient narrator, feeling it was a necessity to carry the story as the comic wasn't large enough to include every scene from the movie. A challenge while writing the adaptation was predicting what scenes the audience would expect to see in the comic book, which required consideration into what space could be used or how much of a scene was needed to establish an idea from the script. With Lucasfilm Ltd. about to start work on the film when Dark Horse got involved in the comic adaptation, Miller got to see production art before there was any photography, requiring him to use a great deal of imagination to figure out how the scenes connecting the set pieces were going to look.Interview to John Jackson Miller at El Recoveco del Geek In his additions to the story, Miller included some knowledge about Nazca that he had acquired from reading Chariots of the Gods? back in middle school. Collections *''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'' TPB Issues *''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 1'' *''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 2'' Cover gallery File:Final IJatKotCS1.jpg|Issue 1 File:IJatKotCS1varFinal.jpg|Issue 1 variant File:IJatKotCS2.jpg|Issue 2 File:IJatKotCS2var.jpg|Issue 2 variant File:IJatKotCS_TPB.jpg|Trade paperback Notes and references External links *John Jackson Miller's notes on writing the comic Category:Comic adaptations Category:Dark Horse Comics